


gaining an angel

by wafflesandpancakes



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Character Death, Does this count as college au? idk, Drugs, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Healing, Heavy Angst, I think that was it? idk, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Is this Survivor Guilt?, M/M, Minor Character Death, Past Character Death, Personal Growth, Sad, Suicide, Suicide Notes, both not that much just shortly mentioned in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:48:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25223422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflesandpancakes/pseuds/wafflesandpancakes
Summary: That god-forbidden vineyard is cursed and Lando knows it. Has experienced it. When Max disappears, Lando is not happy to find out that he's exactly there. The place Lando dreads to go.orI was asked to write something with Lando, Max and Dan, and it was supposed to be fluff but it turned out to be this.
Relationships: Alexander Albon & Lando Norris & George Russell, Alexander Albon/George Russell (past), Charles Leclerc & Daniel Ricciardo (past), Daniel Ricciardo & Lando Norris, Daniel Ricciardo & Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo/Max Verstappen (implied), Jules Bianchi & Daniel Ricciardo (past), Jules Bianchi/Daniel Ricciardo (past), Lando Norris & Max Verstappen, Lando Norris/Lance Stroll, Michael Italiano/Daniel Ricciardo
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	gaining an angel

**Author's Note:**

> HI PLEASE DON'T HATE ME.
> 
> I asked some friends what they wanted to read (to cure my Writer's Block) and I started this a month ago or so and finished it now.  
> It was supposed to have a happy ending but ahhahahahaha no. Didn't do that. Woops.
> 
> Love y'all, and please don't kill me
> 
> \- waffles

Ricciardo

Mate, have you heard from Max?

Nah, he told me he wanted to meet up w/ you bc of some homework

Wait, what the fuck, he told me he wanted to meet up with his cousin.

Nico’s not even in England atm, he’s in Thailand or some shit with his boyfriend  
And he really didn’t go to your place?

Would I ask you if he was here?  
Fuck, Lando, why would he be lying?

I’m sure nothing bad happened.  
He’ll turn up again.  
Wait, he sent me a snap an hour ago or so, maybe the snap map will show his location.

The vineyard? What is he doing there?  
Lando?  
Norris, what the fuck is happening  
Why aren’t you answering  
Lando ffs it’s been 30 minutes, WHERE ARE YOU

Vineyard.  
Can you come too?

I don’t have the car. I couldn’t be there in less than an hour or so.

I’ll try to find Max before it’s dark. Can’t promise anything.

Keep me updated. Please.

sure. gotta go.

* * *

“Max? Max, where the fuck are you?!”

Lando walked through the woods surrounding the old vineyard. He hated the place, he had hated it since he was a child and had got lost there when playing with George and Alex. The people in town had always said that the vineyard was cursed, that the owner had run his business into the wall and before his wife could leave him with the children, he had killed all of them and then himself. Growing up in a small town, every child had heard of the story, and it was common for the older ones to dare each other to spend a night at the vineyard. For the younger ones, it had become a place to keep their distance too when playing in the woods, but the three of them, George, Alex and him, they had always been different. They had always loved to tease the boundaries until they nearly overstepped them. They had overstepped them the day they had entered the vineyard.

_ Lando had barely turned twelve, the youngest and most afraid of them, while Alex had not been far from sixteen, normally too old to spend time with them and the calmest of the three, the reasonable one. George had always been the middle one, a few days from his fourteenth birthday, sometimes young and impulsive, sometimes old and wise - if you could call it wise. Wise for their age. They had played in the snow, throwing snowballs at each other, walking through the woods while telling each other stories, bitching about their parents, their siblings, school, and life in general. They had been careless. Until they weren’t. Until Alex disappeared without a trace. Until they looked to the left and when they looked back, he was gone. _

“Max, this isn’t funny! Dan and I are worried about you! Please!”

_ They had found his body three weeks later. The cold weather had postponed the decay, meaning that they were able to recognize him pretty quickly. The autopsy said that he had broken his neck when stumbling over a root and falling down a hill - George and Lando had always known that it was probably not the truth, they would have noticed Alex falling down. They would have seen it happen. They had been  right there . _

“Shit, no signal… As always,” Lando sighed and sat down on a tree stump.

_ Alex’ death had hit George the most. Lando had not been blind, he knew that there was more than friendship between them, but he also knew that they had never talked about their feelings. So when Alex disappeared, a part of George’s soul had disappeared too. With every day that had gone by, George had gotten quieter, distancing himself from Lando more and more. He knew that the other had been grieving, he had been grieving too, the whole town had been grieving, but he knew that it had hit George deeper than anyone else. Therefore, it had not baffled him as much as all the other people when George did not come to school one day. When George’s parents called his family in the evening, asking if George had been in school. When everyone in the town had been up and searching for him, Lando had known where he was. _

“The number you have dialed has been changed or is not in service.” Lando slowly took his phone away from his ear, staring at the number he had tried to call with the tiny amount of service he had found a few meters deeper into the woods. He had tried to call the one person who would have kept a cool head throughout the whole situation:  ** George ** .

_ Later on, they had found him at the vineyard. He had hung himself on the big entrance gate, swaying in the wind, his face pale and his eyes closed. That was what they had told him, at least. He had carried three letters in his pockets. One addressed to his family, one addressed to Lando and one addressed to Alex. They had handed the last two letters to Lando, knowing that he had been the closest to both George and Alex. Lando had sat on his bed, carefully opening the letter addressed to him first. _

_ “Hey muppet, _

_ I’m sorry to leave you this way. I just couldn’t take it anymore. That fucking vineyard’s haunted, and if something’s proven that, it was Alex’ death. It’s haunted me since Alex disappeared, and it didn’t stop returning in my sleep. Every night I saw him in front of me, begging me to help him, to not let him die… _

_ Lando, I am so sorry. I had promised me not to leave you alone, now here I am, like the biggest pansy in the world, doing exactly that. I hope you can forgive me someday. It’s okay if you don’t. _

_ I’ll see you again at some point. Hopefully only in many, many years. _

_ Make Alex and me proud. _

_ In love, _

_ George.” _

_ Of course, Lando had cried. He had bawled his eyes out. But he had forgiven George the second he had read the letter. And he had forgiven him a second time when he had read the letter to Alex, sitting cross-legged in front of his grave, trying to pronounce every word as clear and with the least shakiness to his voice as possible. _

_ “Hey Alex, _

_ Now we’re together at last. I regret so much, I regret not helping you, not looking for you properly. _

_ I regret never telling you about my feelings. _

_ I wish I would have told you sooner, maybe we wouldn’t have gone to this stupid vineyard then. Maybe you would still be alive, maybe hold me in your arms and tell me that you love me. Maybe we would finally leave this town behind and be rich and famous, just like we always talked about. _

_ You’re probably watching me from above, scolding me for how stupid I am to end my life like that, to leave Lando alone without anyone to guide him. _

_ But I can’t live anymore. Not without you. Not without this ever-lasting guilt inside of me. We are responsible for your death - we should’ve stayed at home and watched a movie instead as you said. _

_ I hope this is the right thing. I hope we’ll see each other again now that we’re both walking amongst the stars. I hope that you’ll be the first one I see after my death. _

_ With all my love, _

_ George.” _

_ And Lando remembered sitting at the grave, turning his tear-stained face to the sky and whispering: “I hope so too.” _

“I hope so too…”

Lando stared at the phone in his hands. It had locked itself, and when he hit the on-button, it showed a picture of him, Max and Daniel, side by side after a soccer game, sweat running down their foreheads, and their smiles were as big as if they had won the Champions League. After Alex’ and George’s deaths, he had been an outsider for quite some time, not only because he did not want to let go of the mystery around Alex’ death (which he had done at some point, seeing no sense in lingering in the past - it would bring neither, Alex nor George, back), but also because he did not want to have new friends. He had had Alex and George, he did not want anyone else. It changed once he entered Sixth Form and met Max, one of his new classmates, who quickly introduced him to the one-year-older Dan. He had never told them what happened to Alex and George, and since both Dan and Max had not grown up in the town and had only moved there years after their deaths, he had only told them that they had moved away (moving away and passing away were nearly the same, right?). Still, he had refused to come to the vineyard whenever one of them had proposed it, and he had often found himself convincing them that they should not go there, always telling some stupid lies which they apparently believed.

He got up again, putting the phone into his back pocket. He had to find Max. He could not lose another one of his friends to this place, especially not Max. Not poor, hurt Max. Not the Max who he had sworn to protect the first time he had broken down when talking about what his father had done to him, showing them the bruises on his back and thighs, explaining why he never showered with them after practice. Not the Max who had held him the night after he had come out to his parents when he had fled the house before they could even say anything about it. Not the Max Daniel found at a house party once, bent over the toilet seat, vomiting his lungs out, nearly passing out. Not the Max who had become like a brother to both him and Dan.

“MAX!”, Lando screamed at the top of his lungs, hearing how his voice echoed in the depths of the forest, the only thing he heard. No answer came from Max, no hint at where he was.

Lando stayed in the forest until the sun had disappeared behind the horizon. He knew that it was too dangerous to stay there during the night, he could stumble and hurt himself and no one would be there to help him, so as the moon wandered up the sky, he made his way back to the entrance of the vineyard where his car stood. Only then he was finally able to text Dan, having received multiple texts from the Aussie, each one more and more worried. With a sigh, he pressed the call button, his lower lip shaking as he waited for the other to answer the call.

“Lando! Have you found him?!”

“No,” a sob left his throat, the first tears running down his cheek. “There is no trace of him, nothing. Fuck, Dan, I’m so scared, it can’t happen again.”

“Sh… hey, hey, listen to me. Come to my house. We’ll call the police, we’ll call your parents, we’ll call everyone we know. We’ll find him, okay?”

If only Dan knew, if only he had the slightest knowledge about what had happened at his place already. Lando knew Max would not come back. The vineyard had claimed its next victim.

“We promised each other to get married someday, you know? This thing they do in movies and shows, where they say ‘Let’s get married when we’re 30 and single’. We did that.”

They were sitting at the beach, Lando cross-legged, a bottle of beer in one hand, a joint in the other, while Dan had his legs pulled tightly up to his chest, his chin resting on his knees with his bottle of beer standing in the sand. The water was quiet, only a few smaller waves hitting the sand but never coming close to their feet. Lando turned his head. In the last light of the day, Dan looked even more beautiful than he normally did. The only off-putting thing was the misery and the pain in his eyes, the grief of a person who had lost people. Lando knew that his eyes looked the same.

“And you promised the same to Max?”

“Yeah. Fucking stupid. Seems to be cursed.”

“We seem to be cursed.”

5 years had gone by since Max had disappeared. They had never found him ever again, not even his body. They had declared him dead, but it had left an unsettling feeling in his stomach as if it was wrong. They had found Alex and George, why had they not found Max? He must be alive but… where would he be if he was alive? Dan and he had agreed to let the dead be dead and get on with their lives. It meant moving away, letting the past be the past, going to uni, find new friends. But whatever happened, nothing could tear them apart. They were too similar, they had both lost people, and they were able to help each other through the darkness.

_ “Why did you never tell us what happened before you moved out here?” _

_ “How? Should I have mentioned it while we were having fun? It’s… It’s not that easy.” _

_ “They were your best friends.” _

_ “Charles was my best friend, yeah. Jules and I were so much more.” _

_ “Then why didn’t you tell us? We cared about you. I  still care about you.” _

_ “You didn’t tell us about George and Alex either.” _

_ “Touché.” _

They sat in silence, passing the joint back and forth, watching the moon being mirrored in the ocean. Lando bit his lip and moved closer to Dan, resting his head on his shoulder. He did not need to look to know that Dan was smiling now, at least a tiny smile, as he put his arm around the younger one’s back, pulling him closer.

“At least they have each other up there..?”

It surprised himself how young he sounded, how naive and innocent, after everything that had happened.

“Mate, I think Max would’ve hated Charles. And Charles would’ve hated Max.”

They both chuckled and fell silent again afterwards, Dan turning his head to bury his face in Lando’s hair.

“We’re both healing, right?”

They had moved on. They had grown up, experienced character growth, too, and they were feeling better day by day. Of course, there were days where it was harder than usual, but they got through it. Baby steps. Dan had started talking to a boy at uni, Michael, and Lando was sure they would be perfect for each other. And he? Maybe he should ask that boy from his art history course out on a date. He had seen the other look over to him sometimes, and Lance was quite cute. Maybe this would be healing for him. Maybe this  _ was  _ healing.

“Yeah. Yeah, we are.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- this is a work of fiction. nothing of this has ever happened. kudos and comments are welcomed. -


End file.
